Home of the Rabbit that Bites People's Heads Off and Eddie Izzard's Evil Giraffe

Thursday, June 22, 2006

Dock the Vote

Well, it looks like the lessons of George W. Bush's addendums to the torture bill have spread to the lower ranks of the GOP. They see no reason to discriminate against minority voters or to obstruct the election process, but they'd like to keep the option open. And why would that be?

But many Southerners feel the law has achieved its purpose and become more nuisance than necessity in several respects. They have aired those arguments for years, but yesterday they got a boost from Republicans scattered throughout the nation who are increasingly raising a different concern: They insist that immigrants learn and use English.

So basically, they're willing to dramatically alter one of the key pieces of legislation of the Civil Rights Era just to flogg a dying wedge issue. Yay.

Wait. It gets better.

The Voting Rights Act requires Justice Department preapproval of changes in voting practices in states that used techniques such as poll taxes or literacy tests to discourage blacks from voting in the 1960s. Some Republicans in Georgia, Texas and other states say such efforts to disenfranchise minorities disappeared long ago, and that continued coverage by the act is an unfair stigma.

Yeah, here's a lesson from the history books: When a group of people who have a history of shady practices (that, many would argue, continuesto thisvery day) around a certain issue say, "Yeah, we've moved past that," without offering any distinctive proof... there is a very good chance that they have not.

This is what the corrupt members of the GOP want: to pick and choose who gets the right to vote in this nation. And they don't care what pieces of history they have to shit all over to get their way.